#175 - Dr Melvin Vopson - A Physicist Says Reality May Be Code

Summary

---

Podcast Summary: The Peter McCormack Show

Episode #175 – Dr. Melvin Vopson: A Physicist Says Reality May Be Code
Date: May 14, 2026
Host: Peter McCormack
Guest: Dr. Melvin Vopson (Physicist, University of Portsmouth)

---

Overview

In this engaging and philosophical episode, Peter McCormack sits down with Dr. Melvin Vopson, a physicist and founder of the Information Physics Institute, to explore the provocative idea that our reality may be governed by code—akin to a digital simulation. Vopson shares insights from his research on information physics, the fundamental role that information plays in the universe, and recent scientific advances that blur the lines between biology, computation, and consciousness. The discussion weaves together science, philosophy, religion, AI, and personal reflections on existence, free will, and the ultimate purpose of life.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Simulation Hypothesis and Information Physics

• Emerging View of Reality as Code

  • Dr. Vopson introduces the idea that the universe may operate as a computational process, where information is not just a byproduct but the very fabric of reality ([00:28], [06:17]).
    • "The science points to a computational process governing the universe." – Melvin ([00:28])
    • "Information as the fifth state of matter...perhaps the dominant and governing form of matter in the entire universe." – Melvin ([10:19])

• Historical and Cross-Cultural Parallels

  • Philosophical and religious traditions have long entertained the notion that reality is an illusion (maya in Hinduism, Gnosticism, Aboriginal dreamtime, etc.) ([01:51]–[03:44]).

2. From Information Theory to Information Physics

• Role of Entropy and Information

  • Vopson tracks the journey from Claude Shannon's information theory (bits, entropy) to the realisation that entropy in information and entropy in physical systems are deeply connected ([04:18]–[06:17]).
  • "Are those [thoughts, memories] physical entities or some kind of fugazi nothing...Is information itself physical?" – Melvin ([07:26])

• Information as the 'Fifth State'

  • Beyond solids, liquids, gases, and plasma, Vopson proposes information as a real, distinct state of matter ([10:19]).

3. Simulation Evidence and Laws of Physics

• Compression and Symmetry

  • The universe’s tendency toward efficiency, symmetry, and data compression is highlighted as potential evidence of computational rules at play, much like a digital simulation seeks to optimize for performance ([26:38], [31:32], [35:21]).
    • "The universe appears to optimize itself. It appears to reduce the information content, optimize just like anything that looks for efficiency..." – Melvin ([26:38])
    • "When you write a code...you write things to execute in the code that you are interested in executing." – Melvin ([32:14])
    • "Symmetry is compression." – Peter ([30:26])

• Error-Correcting Codes in Physics

  • Reference to James Gates' discovery of error-correcting codes within string theory equations, paralleling constructs used in digital computation ([34:15]).

• Nature of Fundamental Constants and ‘Fine Tuning’

  • The fine-tuning problem: universal physical constants seem perfectly balanced for life, raising questions about chance versus design ([19:25]).

4. Intelligent Design, Evolution, and Creation

• Bridging Evolution and Creation
  • Dr. Vopson suggests a hybrid model: initial seeding/creation occurred, followed by evolution (Darwinism), echoing both religious and scientific perspectives ([14:19]–[16:34]).
    • "What I'm saying is that they're both true. I'm saying that there was a process of seeding. There was a process of initial state being created." – Melvin ([14:19])

5. Mass, Information, and 'Dark Matter'

• Information Has Mass?
  • Vopson’s 2019 paper proposes that information can possess mass, potentially providing a solution to the dark matter/energy mystery ([38:32]).
    • "If we are in a computational construct, it would make sense that the dominant part is code and data. And if it has mass, then maybe that 95% that we have no idea...maybe that is actually the code." – Melvin ([38:32])

6. Experimental Proof: Are We in a Simulation?

• The 'Billion Dollar Question'
  • What experiment could prove we’re in a simulation? Vopson emphasizes looking for evidence of code or vast quantities of data—possibly corresponding to dark matter/energy ([21:39], [38:45]).

7. Recent Breakthrough: Consciousness in a Digital Construct

• Fruit Fly Brain Simulation (Aeon Systems & Flywire)

  • Groundbreaking 2026 research: a fruit fly's brain is painstakingly mapped, virtually reconstructed, and loaded into a digital physics engine—resulting in behavior indistinguishable from a real fly, without any training, AI, or coding ([51:47], [55:11]).
    • "They just loaded the brain structure into a simulated fly and he started to behave like a real one." – Melvin ([55:11])
    • "This is the insane thing. There is no training, there is no code line, there is no machine learning, there is no AI." – Melvin ([55:11])

• Scaling Up: Implications for Mind Uploading

  • The technological leap hints at the theoretical potential for mapping and uploading larger brains (mice, humans), intensifying questions about consciousness, the soul, and identity ([56:31], [57:31]).

8. Philosophical: Identity, Consciousness, and Free Will

• Subjective Experience and Continuity of Self

  • The group debates whether a digitally uploaded mind is 'really you' or just a convincing copy ([59:25]–[64:37]).
    • "Is the version of me they upload indistinguishable from the real-world me to me in that digital world?" – Peter ([59:26])

• Consciousness: Emergent or Fundamental?

  • Vopson leans towards consciousness being an emergent property but sees the answer as unresolved ([61:21], [74:47]).

• Free Will as an Illusion

  • Both Vopson and the hosts express skepticism about free will, likening behavior to following code ([58:38], [74:08]).
    • "You think you have a choice, but you actually... like, we are programmed to do things." – Melvin ([58:38])
    • "I don't think we have free will. That's the thing. I don't." – Melvin ([74:08])

9. Religion, Mythology, and the Code Analogy

• Biblical and Quranic References

  • A re-interpretation of John 1:1 as a code metaphor—"In the beginning was the code..."—raising the possibility that ancient texts allude to information-centric creation ([45:10]–[46:21]).
    • "Change 'Word' to 'code'...In the beginning, it was the code. The code was with the creator, but the code was the creator..." – Melvin ([46:20])
    • "God is an AI." – Melvin ([46:21])

• Religious Texts and Simulation Language

  • Other traditions refer to life as a 'game' or ‘illusion’, paralleling simulation theory ([48:25]).

10. AI, Immortality, and the Singularity

• Race for Superintelligence

  • Silicon Valley billionaires are actively exploring simulation theory, with AI seen as the possible bridge to understanding or even hacking reality itself ([39:31], [49:14]).
    • "If you have access to the code, you become God." – Melvin ([41:44])

• Implications of Breaking Out

  • Hypothetical: if someone accessed the universal code, they would have limitless power, potentially becoming ‘God’—but perhaps finding existence empty and ‘boring’ ([41:44], [42:36], [80:03]).

11. Personal Reflections and the Search for Meaning

• Fear of Death and Conservation Laws

  • Vopson shares that his exposure to information physics and conservation principles has lessened his fear of death, suggesting some essence survives ([68:47]).

• Preparedness and The Purpose of Life

  • Discussion of the Tibetan Book of Living and Dying: perhaps life is preparation for some ‘next level’ or form of transcendence ([66:31], [67:04]).
    • "Your entire life you are preparing for death." – Peter ([66:45])
    • "The law of conservation of information...require that something remains at the point of death. You, you are not completely erased." – Melvin ([68:47])

• Would Knowing Change Anything?

  • If proof emerged that we live in a simulation, would it alter the way we live? The consensus: probably not ([78:39]).
    • "I think nothing. I think. I think we are going to go about our lives the same way." – Melvin ([79:03])
    • "It's the chase, it's the journey that matters." – Connor ([80:03])

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

| Timestamp | Speaker | Quote/Description | |-----------|---------|------------------| | 00:28 | Melvin | “The science points to a computational process governing the universe.” | | 06:17 | Melvin | “What it means is looking at information as a physical entity.” | | 10:19 | Melvin | “The fifth state of matter is information and is perhaps the dominant and governing form of matter in the entire universe.” | | 19:25 | Melvin | “It's like saying, hey, I have a lorry with bricks and I'm going to throw the bricks out… at some point you are going to get the last brick in the right place and maybe get a house.” | | 26:38 | Melvin | “The universe appears to optimize itself. It appears to reduce the information content… indicates some kind of computational process with limited power and limited resources.” | | 30:26 | Peter | “Because symmetry is compression.” | | 32:14 | Melvin | “If you write a code, you write things to execute in the code that you are interested in executing.” | | 34:15 | Melvin | “In 2012, James Gates…found in the equations of the string theory…evidence of error correcting code.” | | 38:32 | Melvin | “If he has mass, then maybe that 95% that we have no idea where…maybe that 95% is actually the code.” | | 41:44 | Melvin | “If you have access to the code, you become God.” | | 45:10 | Melvin | "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God...But to me, word is code. Because when you write a computer code, you use words... Now let's read that with a code instead of word." | | 55:11 | Melvin | “There is no training, there is no code line…They just loaded the brain structure into a simulated fly and he started to behave like a real one.” | | 58:38 | Melvin | “Both. It scares me and excites me at the same time...You think you have a choice but actually… like, we are programmed to do things.” | | 74:08 | Melvin | “I don’t think we have free will. That's the thing. I don't." | | 79:03 | Melvin | “I think nothing. I think we are going to go about our lives the same way.” | | 80:03 | Connor | "Knowing will defeat the purpose of life...It's the chase, it's the journey that matters." | | 68:47 | Melvin | “I'm no longer scared of death...the law of conservation of information…require that something remains at the point of death. You are not completely erased.” |

---

Important Segment Timestamps

• [00:28] Simulation hypothesis laid out
• [06:17] Introduction to information as a physical entity
• [10:19] Information as the fifth state of matter
• [21:39] How to design an experiment to prove simulation
• [26:38] Evidence for universe optimizing itself (compression/symmetry)
• [38:32] Dark matter as code/information
• [41:44] Hacking the code of reality = becoming God
• [45:10] Religious texts as metaphors for code/simulation
• [51:47] Fruit fly digital brain simulation: landmark research
• [58:38] Free will—illusion or reality?
• [61:21] The question of uploading consciousness
• [66:45] Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, purpose of life
• [68:47] Conservation laws lessen fear of death
• [74:08] Explicit rejection of free will
• [79:03] Would proof of simulation change anything?

---

Closing Thoughts

Dr. Melvin Vopson’s exploration of information physics poses urgent and fascinating challenges to conventional understanding of reality. From the possibility that “code is God” and ourselves mere informational constructs, to the immediate technological advances in simulating life, the conversation stretches across science, philosophy, and the deeply personal.

Ultimately, while the evidence mounts for a computational underpinning to our universe, the episode leaves listeners with open questions about consciousness, identity, the meaning of life, and whether answers—if they ever come—would truly change the human experience.

---

For further exploration:

• University of Portsmouth, Melvin Vopson’s faculty page
• Information Physics Institute: publications and IPI Learn lecture series on YouTube

---

"There is something much more complex than we can even comprehend...We have no idea."
— Dr. Melvin Vopson ([80:51])

Transcript

[Professor Melvin]

This is the insane thing. There is no training, there is no code line, there is no machine learning, there is no AI. There is no data training, There is nothing. They just loaded the brain structure into a simulated fly and he started to behave like a real one. He woke up into a digital construct. And in this very moment, there is a fly looking for food. And nobody programmed it to do this,

[Peter]

it just did it.

[Professor Melvin]

Let's assume hypothetically that these guys eon systems and they map a human brain entirely and they load it into a simulation like this. What exactly wakes up in there? The science points to a computational process governing the universe. The golden rule. Who's got the gold, makes the rules. Yeah, they have behind the big atomic weapon. Yeah, you control the planet, but if you hack the code of reality, if you hack the simulation, you control the universe. You do what you want, you really have no limit.

[Peter]

What does it actually mean?

[Professor Melvin]

It means you have access to the code of reality. You can bend reality, you can bend the laws of physics. You can do things that are, they appear like magical in our everyday life.

[Peter]

You become God.

[Professor Melvin]

You become God.

[Peter]

This show is brought to you by my lead sponsor, Iron the AI cloud for the next big thing. IRON builds and operates next generation data centers and delivers cutting edge GPU infrastructure, all powered by renewable energy. Now if you need access to scalable GPU clusters or are simply curious about who is powering the future of AI, check out iron.com to learn more, which is iren.com right? Melvin, what is it about life that feels artificial to you?

[Professor Melvin]

It doesn't actually feel artificial to me. But this has been an issue for millennia. Deep thinkers, philosophers have suggested long ago, more than 2,000 years ago. And I have in mind Plato, Aristotle, the idealism, you know, this philosophical idea that nothing is real and it's only the mind and consciousness that creates and renders reality. So this is, this is something as old as human civilization, that there are ancient traditions and mythologies that actually talk about this world being something not real. So the, in Hinduism for example, you have the, the concept of Maya describing the world as an artificial illusion sort of thing, something that is not real. Buddhism talks about similar ideas. Gnostic traditions, they describe the universe as a construct where consciousness is trapped and is non real. And then you have Aborigine, Aboriginal tribes in Australia, they were describing the world as a mirage or as a dream of ancestral beings. And we are in that dream. So this generation is projected the entire universe by these ancestral beings dreaming and we are in it. So the question is this is not what I think is what all these mythologies and ancient traditions and cultures, why they all talk about world being something not real.

[Peter]

But you think we're in assimilation.

[Professor Melvin]

I was never actually interested in this topic. It came totally by accident. While doing research in information data storage technologies, materials for data storage. And I was lucky enough to discover some things. But it has implications into so many branches of society. Science, philosophy, everything, even religion. It touches even on the religion beliefs.

[Peter]

What was that moment? What was that moment where you clicked?

[Professor Melvin]

It was a progressive transition from. So I was working on this very applied piece of research and I had to understand how to allocate these memory states to the device that I was working on. And no idea. I learned about Shannon's information theory that was developed in 1940s and he was working on a communication theory. He was looking at the most optimal way of transmitting data from A to B in a noisy. Via noisy channels and so on. He came up with something called information theory. This is the father of digital computing. He is the guy who gave us the unit of a bit of information. Okay. So we measure data in bits. It comes from Shannon, and specifically from something called information entropy that he developed a formula to calculate a measure of information entropy that gives you something that is quantified in bits of information. So those are the units now coming from a physics angle. And listen, hearing about entropy and information entropy, immediately the. A couple of red lights start flicking and clicking in my brain and, you know, connections forming. And I started to look into this notion of entropy of information and then looking at the entropy of physical systems that we use in physics all the time and finding synergies between these two concepts and looking at how we can bring physics into computing and information theory and digital technologies and create something called information physics.

[Peter]

Help me understand what you mean by information physics. Because for me, I think of information as things I have stored in my brain and things that exist on a computer. Yeah, that's what I think of.

[Professor Melvin]

So what it means is looking at information as a physical entity.

[Peter]

Okay.

[Professor Melvin]

Okay.

[Peter]

It's a thing.

[Professor Melvin]

So when you say your brain, you. I suppose you mean your thoughts and your. Your ideas and your imagination and memories and. Yeah, are those. And the fundamental question is, are those physical entities or are they just some kind of fugazi nothing, some entity, some abstract, something like ether or some like nothing. Okay. Are they physical? That's the question. Is information itself physical? So we live in a physical universe. This table, what is this table is physical. This glass of water is physical. You Are physical. I am physical. The air we breathe is physical. Everything is. And we are part of the universe, and we are all subjected to the laws of physics, okay, because we are in the physical universe. But your brain and your thoughts and my thoughts and my ideas and anything you create, information, whether it's digital or other forms of information, are they not part of the universe? They are not outside the universe. They are. They are physically existing in the same construct that we operate.

[Peter]

But I understand a table is a physical thing, and I understand this microphone is a physical thing. How do I see a piece of information? How do I understand that as a physical thing? Like in my brain? I don't know how the brain works, but my brain has a way of storing memories, so it's storing information. Now on a computer, we know it stores that as on.

[Professor Melvin]

Yeah, memory devices.

[Peter]

Memory devices is, you know, bits of information. So. So assuming the brain does a similar kind of thing to store information, we

[Professor Melvin]

don't have a clear understanding how the brain stores information at the moment. But it's a biological computer. It stores data, it processes data, it does computation and so on. Yes. How is that physical? Okay, so let's assume you want to build a house, okay? To build a house, what do you need? You need some kind of blueprint, don't you?

[Peter]

Yes.

[Professor Melvin]

You need some kind of designs. Where do they come from?

[Peter]

They come from.

[Professor Melvin]

So let's say you are the architect. Let's say you are there. It's your. Your vision of building your dream house, okay. You do a grand design sort of design. You want to build a house, and it starts with your vision in your mind. You start creating a vision. Well, I think it's how the house is going to look, how many floors you are going to have, what the garden is like, what kind of, you know, compartment, compartment, you know, the. The rooms inside the house. How do you distribute them and the sizes and all that. It comes from your brain and from your vision. Is that. Is that real or not? That's the question. So that house does not appear by itself. It will never. A house will never build itself. A house has to be first thought. And not just a house. That's an abstract. You know, this book, this table was designed by somebody, okay? So this existed first in someone's mind. That microphone was designed by somebody first in their mind. It was an engineering design, and then it went into a production line and it became a microphone. But initially. And behind that, there are even Nobel prize discoveries probably in there you have the, you know, conversion of sound Waves into electricity. And so all these modulation, all the science that goes into a simple device like the M. But they are not coming from nowhere. They are the product of intelligent design. They are the product of your mind. And so the question is that is that real or is not real? Because if you say it's not real, it means the house comes from nothing. Or this microphone came from nothing, or this table came from nothing. They don't come from nothing. They come from real things. From mind, from information, from creation, from information. And this is a not only is real. In my book and my papers, I talk about information as the fifth state of matter. Okay, so we have solid. Yeah, that's table. We have gas is air and other things. Okay. All the gases, we have plasma. That's like the sun, for example. Gas and liquid. So liquid right here. Okay. Four states of matter that we are aware of. Okay. The fifth one, I call it information. And it's not just the missing. The fifth element. If you, if you've seen the movie, for example, the idea in that movie was exactly this. The fifth element was information encoded into the genetic makeup of this beautiful lady that was reconstructed from, from the genome. It was information. The fifth element was information. And so what I'm saying is that the fifth state of matter is information and is perhaps the dominant and the governing form of matter in the entire universe. In other words, before anything appears, before anything manifests or exists or takes shape, there is an information under layer. And from there this, the rest of states of matter emerge and the creation

[Peter]

of life is the merging of pieces of information.

[Professor Melvin]

Exactly. But if we get into that, the life itself. So that is a very strong point you are making there. I'm going to come back to that in a second. I just want to make another point on this. It's not just me saying this is. John Wheeler is the legendary physicist. He worked on My Hat a project and this is just a legend in physics. Okay. He is the guy who coined the, the, the phrase eat from bit. He wrote in 1980s about the information being the fundamental aspect of the entire universe. He said that everything emanates, particles, fields, everything, from choices of 1 and 0. Yes, no, up, down, everything can be reduced to this. Probabilistic states of information, either this or that. And you can reconstruct the entire mathematics, the physics, laws of physics, everything. Digitize the universe if you want it from bit and that if you extrapolate a little bit, it suggests that the entire universe is some kind of construct which has an informational sub layer that some kind of computational construct. So your very first question was, why do I believe we live in a simulation? I've never researched that, and I'm not quite saying that. I'm saying that the science points to a computational process governing the universe. That could mean a simulation, but it could also mean some other explanations. For example, a universe computing itself, okay, like working like a giant computer and computer, there's nobody doing it. It's just. That's how it works. But what it means, it means the laws of physics and mathematics and everything, they are not the most fundamental things to explain the universe. It's computational rules and code that are actually governing everything. And these are emerging from these computational rules. That's what I'm saying.

[Peter]

If things contain information, DNA is information, right?

[Professor Melvin]

We are informational systems.

[Peter]

We're information.

[Professor Melvin]

It's not just the whole body is informational, but we have another informational component in. In our brains is a super advanced biological computer with data storage, processing and everything.

[Peter]

So if I provide the sperm and my partner provides the egg, we're both providing information which is merged to create life.

[Professor Melvin]

Yeah, but that. So this is evolution. Okay, so we are looking at evolution. The question is, how is the chicken and egg question, okay, how the first cell, living cell, or the first unicellular organism came about, how the first DNA came up. I mean, if you sit down and work the probabilities of even some modest amino acids being formed randomly by random mutations in this. In this soup of inorganic chemicals, okay, randomly, okay, until some modest amino acid appears and it clicks in place, that it does a function that is meant to do, okay, it will take longer than the age of the universe. If you have a mutation, I think a second or a mutate, something like a mutation, I say I have in the book this. I don't remember the exact numbers, but if you have a mutation taking place every second, something like that, it will take longer than the age of the universe to even form the most basic rna. Something. Structure is. So what I'm saying here, I'm saying that it speaks. We talk about. We talk about. We talk about evolution here, but we also talk about intelligent design. We talk about creation. Okay, so which one is which? Okay, you talk to church people, they will say creation, of course, you talk to science people, they will say, oh, it's evolution is Darwinism. All right? What I'm saying is that they're both true. I'm saying that there was a process of seeding. There was a process of initial state being created. The rules set in place and then let it go. And evolution took, took over. And then we see the complexity that we see today and the, the world the way it is, the universe, the, the life forms and everything else. But there was creation at the point of creation. At some point there was intelligent design,

[Peter]

but that also has its own chicken and egg. Who created.

[Professor Melvin]

It's. Yeah, the. It's an epistemic sort of. You, you don't. You kick the can down the road. You are not answering. You are just shifting the problem somewhere else. Okay. He's not telling us where we come from, what was before, why do we exist rather than why there is something rather than nothing. All these questions was conscious consciousness and all that stuff. You don't get an answer by saying there is a process of creation or there is a simulation. You don't. You just move the post into another location and then the same questions remain actually, because you move exactly the same framework and questions to the next. The next location, like who what was before that? Or who is that? Okay, that entity that see did the. And we may never have an answer to this. But to say that things came about randomly,

[Peter]

you know.

[Professor Melvin]

Well, there are two possibilities. Either the. The. The. The. The were infinite number of trials. In other words, universes, like a universe formed. Nothing happened. The probabilities didn't click in place. Nothing happened. There is no life. There is no. The universe is not stable. The, the Planck constant is not the Planck constant. The speed of light is a bit off. The. And that doesn't work. Next, another universe appears. Another Big bang, Another again. I, I can't tell who creates these cycles and why these things happen. But you can imagine zillions and zillions and zillions of times this process taking place until boom. A perfect universe appears where all the constants are in place. It's prime for, you know, occurrence of life, biological life forms, intelligence. You either think that, that the universe attempted itself to form so many, so many, so many infinite times, very large number of times until probabilistically is non zero. Yeah, it's non zero. It's like saying, hey, I have a lorry with bricks and I'm going to throw the bricks out of the lorry one by one and they will arrange themselves into a house. But there's nobody there. There are no builders, no workers, no engineers. No, I just randomly threw the bricks out of the. I'm not even looking. I'll free them like this. And then by the time I finish, I turn and there is a house behind me. So that's exactly this is what I'm saying. And guess what, there is a non zero probability this is possible. If you do this an infinite times, at some point you are going to get the last brick in the rally place and maybe get a house.

[Peter]

Is this because the rules of physics are so finely tuned? Exactly. If you make slight changes, everything collapses or doesn't work.

[Professor Melvin]

Not only the physics, but in biology is almost statistically impossible to have life appearing by itself. The evolution is fine and it's true and there is evidence of that. It's the start, the start, that first the seeding thing that the spark, the initial spark that we can't really explain. So you either have this brick throwing and building a house so many times until it just happened, or there is somebody who says, hey, I have a design here, a blueprint, I've got a couple of brick layers behind me. Give me brick by brick and I'm going to build a house. It's either that or is accident. Now you choose, you do the math. I believe it's design, I believe it's not an accident. I believe there is intelligent design behind everything.

[Peter]

All right, let's talk to you about my sponsor, Leden. Now, if you're borrowing against your Bitcoin, there's one thing that matters more than anything else. Is it actually safe? Well, Leden have just dropped their lowest rates ever. But more importantly, they haven't changed the thing that matters most. Your Bitcoin is never lent out, so they're not chasing yield. There's no hidden risk and there's no rehypothecation. Just collateralized loans done properly. Now they've done over $10 billion in loans. And they've done this through bull markets, through bear markets and everything in between. And they've done it without ever losing any client assets. So now you get lower rates, which means the bigger the loan, the lower the rate and full transparency before you apply. There's no monthly payments or early repayment penalties. And they give you tools to stay in control from auto top ups to LTV alerts. So you're not choosing between a good rate and safety anymore because with Leden you get both. Now you can check out your rate using the calculator at Ledon IO Peter. So you as a professor, if you had and somebody came to you, they listened to the show and they're like, he's on something. And they come to you and say, I've got an infinite budget for you. What test? What is it you want to. What would you want to Run what kind of test?

[Professor Melvin]

So, yeah, this is the million dollar question. The billion dollar question, yes. So you are asking if you are, Mr. Mario in a computer program, you know, in a game, how do you test your own reality from inside the game?

[Peter]

Yeah.

[Professor Melvin]

What kind of designs you. You come up with to. To understand where you are and what's. What's. What's your universe and what's your reality? And so this is a very. Is Mission Impossible 3.0 is really, really hard to crack. Okay, so what. What you can do, you can. You can start with some assumptions. Okay, so if. Let's start with the assumption that this is indeed a computational. And I'm not calling it a simulation again, I call it some kind of computational process that runs the universe. Okay. So let's assume that this is indeed the case.

[Peter]

Sorry, the opposite of being computational. It's random.

[Professor Melvin]

The just physical things existing without any. Yeah, just random. Just random. Like if you look at the cosmology and the. The way they describe the universe starting from Big Bang and they don't tell you why. Why there was a Big Bang, what triggered the Big Bang, what was before that. They can't even tell even because that becomes a singularity. All the equations collapse at that singularity point. The physics doesn't work, the mathematics doesn't work, so they can't really answer. So whether you do a religious doctrine or you do cosmology, everything originates at some point with an assumption or some kind of belief.

[Peter]

But there's rules. Like this phone is a computer.

[Professor Melvin]

Yeah.

[Peter]

And it has rules.

[Professor Melvin]

Yeah.

[Peter]

That it operates on. Yeah.

[Professor Melvin]

Yeah.

[Peter]

And so does the universe. We have the speed of light, plank length. We have various rules.

[Professor Melvin]

And who gave those rules? Where. Where do they come from? That's. That's exactly. And it's not just that is the symmetries in universe. The universe is abundant in symmetries at all scales, from subatomic all the way to galaxies. Okay. Symmetries popping up everywhere in biological life, in symmetries, in the laws of physics, everything is. Everywhere is symmetry. And the universe is meant to evolve into a. The second law of thermodynamics dictates that the universe should evolve to more chaos, more disorder. That's the governing law that tells how the universe should evolve. Okay. And yet we see complexity and symmetries popping up everywhere. So where do they come from? Richard Feynman famously said, nobody knows where symmetries come from in nature. So in one of the papers that I published in 2023, I believe it was the second law of information dynamics, I found that. So this is what these ideas of computational construct and simulated universe came from, because I found a, a new law of physics essentially that governs the, the entropy not of physical states, but the entropy of information states. And 1, 1, the, the. While the entropy of physical states states that they should evolve into more chaos and more disorder. What I found is that if you probe the entropy of physical states, they tend to evolve to more order and more and less disorder. Okay? So they go exactly in opposite direction to the entropy of the physical states. As in almost like a balancing process. Okay, so there is something that evolves one way, the other one pulls the other way, but they adapt to create, to create equilibrium. And what is that equilibrium? They need to fulfill the, the condition that universe doesn't, doesn't exchange heat or energy with anything else, because it's either infinite with no boundaries, or it's not exchanging heat with anything. It's just, this is what it is, is what you see is what it doesn't have. It's like saying this glass, okay, exchanges heat with the environment around it, the environment around it. This room exchanges heat with the building, the building with the Central London, Central London with the whole London, and so on and so on. But the universe, it has no boundaries. No, if it's closed, it will not exchange with anything if it's infinite and nobody will not. So to fulfill that condition, you need to have entropy. Constant entropy increases all the time. We know that. So that means there is a component in the entropy balance that is missing to balance the increase in the entropy. And that's what I found. I found that entropy is information entropy.

[Peter]

What's the implication of that?

[Professor Melvin]

The implication is that the universe appears to optimize itself. It appears to reduce the information content, optimize just like anything that looks for efficient, like compression, compression, computational power, data storage, all these things are built in, into the fabric of the universe. And that indicates some kind of computational process with limited power and limited resources. That's why the speed of light is the maximum speed of interaction. You can read into that as the maximum computational processing power of the universe, if you want. You cannot. Just like a processor, you buy a laptop or a desktop and it says the processor is CPU 3.7 GHz, and it cannot run faster than that because that's the limit of the processor. And then if you overpower the processor, if you overload the processor as opening too many applications, what is the effect of that? The computer slows down.

[Peter]

Hold on. What would the implication of there being no upper bound limit to the speed of light.

[Professor Melvin]

I'm making exactly that point. So to understand for your viewers, just think of your computer and start opening up so many applications and running so many programs at the same time that you overload the processor.

[Peter]

It slows down.

[Professor Melvin]

It slows down. They. Everything works. Even a mouse doesn't. Doesn't work properly. Everything slows down. Well, this is what we see. With the speed of light. The. The. Sorry. With the time around very large mass objects like black holes, time stops completely. Okay. There is no flow of time. There is. It slows down because the universe cannot process.

[Peter]

Hold on. That's too much dilation. Sorry, that's time dilation, right?

[Professor Melvin]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, but that, that, that's exactly what the computer does when you overload the processor. That could be explained. And

[Connor]

so is that how Mario escapes? Does he need to overload the processor?

[Professor Melvin]

I'm not sure. What. What do you mean by that?

[Connor]

We were talking about the billion dollar question. How do you beat it from within? Do you need to.

[Professor Melvin]

So that was the question. How do you. So I was trying to explain that. It's just Peter is asking very good questions in between the questions. So I don't get to finish. But coming back to that, how you do it. So you need to start with an assumption. And let's assume that, yeah, there is some kind of computational process that powers the universe. So you are the Mr. Mario you want, you are inside, and you make this assumption that you are in a program. How do you prove that? Okay. And there are two ways to actually prove. In my view, there might be other ways, but in my view there are two ways. One is to look for evidence of the code from within the code. Okay. And another one is to look for data that powers the code. There must be a lot of data. All the variables, the program itself, all the things that you store, the information that makes this code function. So there are two things that you can look. Data. Largest, very large. Large amount of data somewhere. Find evidence of that or the code itself. Now, I think I found both. So the. Or. Or. Or evidence of both. Not the evidence, but strong evidence for both. One of them is the second law of information dynamics. Universe. Compressing data, optimization of data, lowering the information entropy in everything, including biological life, by the way. Okay. Why do we have a universe dominated by symmetries instead of chaos and asymmetry?

[Peter]

Because symmetry is compression.

[Professor Melvin]

Yes. The. If you take any Euclidean geometric shape and you take one that has zero symmetry and you compute information Entropy of that shape, you get a value. And if you take the same structure, but you make it fully symmetric, okay, so let's say a square, okay. You take a quadrilateral that has no symmetry whatsoever. All the angles are different, all the sides are. Are different. You compute the information entropy of that. You get a value and then you make it into a square. You optimize it, you make it perfect square, compute the information entropy, you get another value. Always lower. The high symmetry, always lower than. And if you take a trapezoidal, which is lower symmetry than random shape, okay, but not as high symmetry as a square that has a little bit higher information entropy. But the lowest is always the highest symmetry is the lowest. So then it shows that the universe optimizes itself. It's coming back to that brick thing. I like to use the bricks.

[Peter]

It's like a computer, right?

[Professor Melvin]

Exactly.

[Peter]

Like when we want to send files to each other, what do we do? We zip them, we compress them. We're always looking for. For efficiency.

[Professor Melvin]

Exactly.

[Peter]

To make these operate. Well, and what you're saying to me, correct me if I'm wrong, is that you're finding patterns of compression of information in the universe, which is what you would. If you would. If you're designed like if you're designing a simulation on a computer and you run that simulation, Sin City, or what's the one that you play with the shooting game?

[Connor]

Gto.

[Peter]

No, but yeah, you. Every game designer is looking for compression. Compression of information. Like when you're in GTA and you're going around shooting, it only creates the world that you need to see. Everything.

[Professor Melvin]

Exactly. So if you.

[Peter]

That's this.

[Professor Melvin]

Exactly. So if you write a code, if you write a code, you. You write things to execute in the code that you are interested in executing. And you can have added own things there that do completely random things that are not necessary. Those will consume extra power, extra processing power, extra energy, extra, you know, memory states and all that. You want to remove them, you want to optimize. And this is not just. This is not just me seeing this. There were studies in 70s, there was this guy that took a bacterial RNA structure, okay, and he isolated, he sequenced that, genetically sequenced that, okay? And then he isolated that bacterial organism, okay, into an optimal environment proper. Like imagine a human with proper food, proper illumination, proper oxygenation, everything that you need, roof everything, Conditions to thrive, okay? So he's not suppressed of any. Anything that he needs to survive, okay. But he kept it isolated into that environment, okay, for 74 generations. And then he sequenced each generation, the genome from 4,500 base points, characters, it shrunk to something like 200, something 218 or something. More than 95% of the genome deleted itself. It's like that software I was telling you about, if you have a. So, so in other words, that bacteria removed everything that it was garbage in its own code and optimized itself while maintaining all the functions. This is it. This is the data optimization stuff. But in 2012, James Gates from Maryland University, he was researching with his team string theory. And they found in the equations of the string theory, they found some in the structures of those equations. Okay. I'm not doing string theory myself. But in the structures of those equations they found evidence of error correcting code. Okay, so there you have it. If the point is that error correcting code or data compression or all these things. Information theory, Shannon, they have been developed for communication theory, computation, digital technologies, digital computation. They have never been developed for fundamental physics. Why these things are popping up into physical processes and fundamental physics when they were developed, okay. For communication theory, computation, information theory and other other fields. Unless the entire universe has an underlying sub layer which is informational. And he operates in a, you know, on similar principles. This is that. That was the point I was trying to make.

[Peter]

Yeah. Let me just summarize and see if you're following me here, Connor. But so again, computer design, software design, we're always looking for the compression of information to make things more efficient because

[Professor Melvin]

of power and time and energy, because

[Peter]

of the limitations of computers. And also in our own life, we try and put compression into our own life. You know, it can be the microwave in a meal or having a high calorific milkshake or, you know, I don't know, things. We're trying, we're always trying to compress our own life, that is trying to make things more efficient. But if the universe itself is random, why would there be a natural. Why would there be efficiency built into it?

[Professor Melvin]

Why equilibrium? No, compression equilibrium is always minimum energy. Why is efficient efficiency into everything? Because that makes sense impression.

[Connor]

Yes, it does. But I really, I really want to get back to the billion dollar question.

[Peter]

Yeah.

[Connor]

You think you need to find two things.

[Professor Melvin]

You think evidence of the code. And I think I didn't find the code, but I found something that points to this computational process optimization process that we would be related to code. Okay.

[Peter]

Yeah.

[Professor Melvin]

And then the second thing is evidence of the data itself. Okay. If there is some kind of computational or a code, it should be Large amount of data that makes that kick. Data. Large amount of data. What is that data? Okay, take a look at the universe. We know only about 95% of the visible universe. We know about 5% what is made of everything that we see with telescopes. And the visible matter, the stars, the planets, the gases, the. Everything we see in the universe makes up about 5% of the universe. 95. We have no idea what is made of. Cosmologists and astrophysicists, they call it dark matter, dark energy. Okay. They just made up names for things that are missing, but they are dominant. 95%. Okay. Roughly. Roughly, yeah, makes up this. And we have no idea what they are. The two components are required for different reasons. Okay. One is for the expansion of the universe. Axillary 1 is for the stability of the galaxies and the rotational curve of the galaxy. It's actually what Mike is working on, on some of those things. So. And what I'm saying is that what if my 2019 article, Mass Energy information equivalence principle proposes that information is not just physical, but it can have mass. And if he has mass, and if we are in a computational construct, it would make sense that the dominant part of this computational construct is code and data. And if he has mass, then maybe that 95% that we have no idea where Mr. Mario, inside the construct. And we look at the construction. When you look at the universe, you look at the code. Actually, you look at the code writing the universe. Okay, maybe that 95% is actually the code.

[Peter]

So dark matter is the code.

[Professor Melvin]

Dark matter, dark. Well, I actually gave a number in the 2019 paper. Roughly 10 to the power. 96 bits of data will make up all the missing dark matter.

[Peter]

Okay, I have a question on that though. Can I just ask one question?

[Professor Melvin]

So this will be. It's a speculation. Okay? So if you want to prove this. If you want to prove this, because you said, what experiment would you do? Okay, yeah, I even crowdfunded for an experiment at some point. Okay. I made 2% or something of the target money, but you need. You need serious money to do it. Okay. The experiment was to look to develop a protocol to test this mass energy information equivalence principle to show that information has mass. And I designed a few protocols to actually do that. Okay. If you can do that, is game over. Because that will click into everything. It will explain so many unknowns in physics, so many. And you will also underpin this simulated universe.

[Peter]

I think it was Elon Musk who said recently. Was it Elon Musk who said recently? Answer one question. He wants to know what's outside simulation,

[Professor Melvin]

what's on the other side. Yeah, yeah, because he's a smart guy and he knows, he knows there are a couple of billionaires in Silicon Valley working actively on simulation research into the simulation theory. They try to understand what's on the other side and also how to break out of this, maybe hack the simulation, if that makes sense.

[Peter]

I mean, I get what they're saying, but what does it actually mean?

[Professor Melvin]

It means whoever does that is not just. It's almost a national security matter, because whoever does that, it controls not just the planet, it controls the universe. It means you have access to the code of reality. You can bend reality, you can bend the laws of physics, you can do things that appear like magical in our everyday life, but you do it because you control the, the underlying code of reality. So the, the big countries, you know, the Security Council and all the, the big, the big guys, the big players that make the rules. You know, the golden rule, who's got the gold, makes the rules. Yeah, they have, behind the big atomic weapons and all the big guns. Yeah, yeah, you control the planet, but if you hack the code of reality, if you hack the simulation, you control the universe. You, you do what you want. You really have no limit.

[Peter]

Do we know?

[Professor Melvin]

So I think there are people, very rich people that are looking at this from curiosity, scientific drive, but also life extension. Life extension, you know, like achieving a form of immortality or whatever. And perhaps even for the reason I just told you. You know, if you have access to the code, you become God, you become God, you have access to the creation, the code of creation.

[Connor]

But I also think once you become God, things become quite boring. I don't know how many games you play, but there are certain games where you can change the code of the game to give you more lives, less lives, easier stats, all that stuff. Once you clear all the basic code of the game and you're basically immortal, the game becomes very boring quickly because kind of thinking about the, the game

[Peter]

is life, life is struggle. Yeah, it's a bit like how I think. Tell me if this is a good analogy, Connor. Fast wealth growth can be interesting. You know, suddenly becoming rich and the doors are opens, but eventually even rich people have the same miseries that poor or average wage people do because it, once you have access to everything, like

[Professor Melvin]

you need something else, you need something else to do something. So to answer your question, I think the, the key is that you are the game becomes irrelevant because you step outside the game. That's, that's the idea. So you, you are you. You. You become an outsider looking into the game if you want, or change the rules in the game, and you entertain yourself, maybe. Or for lack of a better word. Yeah, I don't like the analogy to games because I think it's much more sophisticated than game or entertainment or whatever is happening. There is a purpose to it. All right.

[Connor]

When you talk about purpose, you said religion is right and Darwinism is right. Yeah, But I think you say that knowing they're right about the process, but not the. The head of who's running the process. Whereas I think most people are always just trying to find out. They don't care really about the process. They're trying to work out who's in. In charge of it because they want to know the purpose. Am I a good human? Because then I'll be rewarded in the afterlife because God is the creator.

[Peter]

Or you get to the next level.

[Connor]

Yeah. So without knowing the purpose of. Is there much more to this than just being a game?

[Professor Melvin]

And if you look at religious texts, they call it a game. If you look actually at the Quran itself. And the reason I'm saying that is because I found in the Christian Bible I found little paragraphs and quotes. So the reason I've been looking into that is saying that we might be in some kind of digital construct or simulating. We don't know what is the operating software or what is the. The, you know, what. What system they use, what programming. We don't. We. We assume is digital because that's what we do, or quantum or something. But it could be something that we can't even imagine what. What is running this. All right. But on this occasion, I had to look at the Bible a little bit. All right. So I was. When you do that, just like with the scientific theories and physics and mathematics, when you look at these from this simulation angle, or information physics, if you want. And when you do the same with the religious texts, then you start seeing things that maybe they were overlooked. So what I found, I found codes in the Bible that actually tell us not only that we are in the simulation, but they appear to tell us who is doing it. Okay, so the John 1:1, he opens with this powerful paragraph, Verset in that. Maybe I'm miscoding some.

[Peter]

Should we get it up?

[Professor Melvin]

Yeah. At the beginning, it was the Word, and Word was with God, and God was the Word.

[Peter]

Okay, Right, here we go. So John 1:1.

[Professor Melvin]

So let me explain what.

[Peter]

Yeah. In. In the beginning was the Word.

[Professor Melvin]

That's the one. Okay.

[Peter]

And the word was with God. Yeah, and the word was God.

[Professor Melvin]

So let's look at that paragraph now and together, let's change. If you bring that up one more

[Peter]

time, please, we've got the full thing,

[Professor Melvin]

so there you go. No, no, I need only that, okay? Only that. I don't need anything. I only that. Look at the word, okay? And change. What, What. When you say word, what is that? That's code, okay?

[Peter]

It's information.

[Professor Melvin]

That, that, Exactly. That's the, to me, the meaning of that, okay? That the religious scholars, philosophers and all that, they will interpret that as something else, okay? But to me, word is code. Because when you, when you write a computer code, you use words and syntax and everything and logic and you create a code. And now let's read that with a code instead of word.

[Peter]

In the beginning was the code.

[Professor Melvin]

It was the code in the beginning. It was the code of the simulation. Yeah, and the code was with God. God being the creator, the programmer, whatever. And word was God. What does it mean? Code was God. What does it mean? That's the most powerful thing that really struck me. It means that God is an AI. The only way that the code is God and God is the creator of the code. And it's only that an AI created everything and AI was the code and it was the creator and God. Read again. In the beginning, it was the code. The code was with the creator, but the code was the creator. That means the code. That means the code is an AI. So let's not turn this into a religious thing. All I'm trying to say is that when I said these things, okay, my intention was to show these religious people, not just Christians, that actually the saying that there is a creation and there is a simulation and is actually not antagonistic to religious beliefs. He's actually very synergetic. It shows that there is a creator. He shows that there is a God. He shows. Yes, maybe down, down, down the fundamental level. Maybe we disagree on what is there, but we are not disagreeing on the, the overall process. So when I said that, so I, I had emails from Muslim scholars, okay? And they, I thought, I thought, I'm gonna get hammered, okay? And they said, professor Robson, we, I, I just wanted to tell you that now I can see, looking at the Quran, I can see now what you are saying. When I've been blind. And then he sent me like pages of paragraphs straight from the Quran, you know, they were in Arabic and then translated in English with the number and everything. And I have them not in the book. But I have them at home and they talk about exactly what you're saying. The life is a game is nothing but entertainment. Game. They call it a game. They. I mean, the real world is outside,

[Peter]

so it's a level. Life, this simulation is a level.

[Professor Melvin]

No, I'm not saying what it is. I'm just saying that could be why the religious texts, if you look at them in this, in this way, why do they tell us, just like the Gnostic traditions, just like the Norse mythology, just like Buddhism, just like Hinduism, just like everything else, that the world is an illusion?

[Connor]

If that is the case, and we talked earlier about the Bible, God is code. Code is God. So your example of you think God is AI, and then we go back to the Silicon Valley, billionaires trying to beat the game, trying to break through to the other side. Could that be an explanation for the race for super intelligence? Because that could create the protocol which. And I think the AI.

[Professor Melvin]

Yeah, and I think, I think is not only a pathway to actually accelerate all the, all the research into this, this, this, this field of research, information physics and cracking the code and all that, but actually it underpins this idea of a simulated universe, the emergence of AI and the fact that we are already generating things that are indistinguishable from reality. Yes, There are clips, images, voice. We can take your picture and your voice and put videos with you that look exactly like you. There is no distinction. So we already question what is real, what is not real because of the AI. The only difference is that we don't know how to render matter at the moment when we learn how to render matter, then we can create simulated realities that are indistinguishable from our reality. What I mean by that, if I take the phone and I call you is essentially you can be in China and we speak on the phone. My voice and the sound is converted into electrical signals and then beamed via electromagnetic waves on the other side to cell towers and all that, it comes to your phone and is reconverted back into sound. And you can hear me and my voice and we can communicate. We can do this with image sound. So we can take pictures, moving pictures, sound, and render them very smartly. We know how to do that when we learn how to render matter. In other words, you take an object and digitize it and then reconstruct it into matter again exactly as it was, not just sound and images. That is the missing gap. Star TREK Exactly. That is exactly when you start simulating realities indistinguishable. This is what is Missing. We are not there yet, but we are moving at the incredibly fast pace. Now, because of AI, the big question is what about life? You can't simulate life. You can't do that. That's one of the things that you will hear from many. Well, let me tell you about a piece of research that just came about very recently. So in October 2024, there was a Nature article published on by a consortium called Flywire. Okay. These are like 20 universities, some big guys. Princeton, Barclay, there are some British ones. Cambridge, Oxford. All these guys are there. Okay. A big consortium. Their objective was to map the entire brain of a fruit fly.

[Peter]

I know of this.

[Professor Melvin]

Yes. So they, they, they how, what they did, they took the, the brain of the fruit fly, they put, put it into some kind of racing and then they sliced it up in 7000 slices, 40 nanometer thick each. Okay. Index the slices and then each. It, it was a 10 year project. Massive project. 10 year project. Yeah. Each slice of the brain imaged under a transmission electron microscope and mapped every single neuron and every single synaptic connection in the slice. And then they stitch them up together using AI and reconstruct it. What you see there is the Flywire project reconstructed the entire brain of the fruit fly. Okay. This is called the connectome. They call it a connectome.

[Peter]

Yeah, it says that there. Reconstructing the connectome.

[Professor Melvin]

The connectome, that's, that's, that's called the brain connectome. It has over 130,000 neurons, 50 million synaptic connections. So it's a massive undertaking to actually do all this. 10 year, okay? Big consortium, 10 years. They were published in Nature. But this, they did, they didn't just treat this as a static data set. They took this brain connectome and put it into a brain emulation. They call it like a, like a digital construct to, to actually simulate it and to look at, under a certain stimulation, how the brain responds, what neural activity is there, the motion, you know, what motion it triggered, what response. To study the response of the brain, what they found is that a, the brain is maximally optimized. It operates a maximum efficiency is amazing. Okay, so that, that was the study. Now enter e on systems. March 2026. That's why I said it's very new. Aeon Systems is a San Francisco based company. These guys, they took the fly, fruit fly, they used CT micrographs, X ray micrographs, okay? And they scanned the fly and they created a digital version of it, okay, with 87 joints and looking exactly like the, the real one. Okay. But in a digital version and put it into a physics engine, is the same physics engine used by DeepMind and OpenAI to train for robotics research and all this stuff, okay. In that simulation construct, okay, they simulate gravity, wind, all the processes, like in a real world, sort of like as realistic as possible. And they put the fly in there, a digital fly, and then they took that brain emulation from Fly Wire project and then load it into the digital fly. And when they did that, what you see here is the fly waking up in the simulation and behaving like a real fly, walking about, grooming, looking for food, responding to. They created virtual orders, they created virtual foods, all sorts of things. And the fly started to behave just like a real fly, you know, eating food, searching for food, responding to any danger or anything. And they could map, they could look at the brain in the real time, like how the brain was responding, you know, they could map because that brain emulation. But the point is that here is the, the, the, the star.

[Peter]

It's a star.

[Professor Melvin]

This is the insane thing. There is no training, there is no code line, there is no machine learning, there is no AI, there is no data training, There is nothing. They just loaded the brain structure into a simulated fly and he started to behave like a real one. He woke up into a digital construct. And in this very moment, there is a fly looking for food into a digital program, digital construct, where he was not born into. Okay? And nobody programmed it to do this.

[Peter]

It just did it.

[Professor Melvin]

It just shows that the, the neuromorphology, the way the neurons and the synapses and all this, the way they are wired, is not just the hardware of the computer. The biological computer is also the software. It's everything in it. And that was enough to put it inside the digital fly. And it behaved just like a real one. So it shows, is the first time ever in the history that we had biological life being simulated into a digital construction. Now the, the EON systems, they try to do this for a mouse. Now from 139,000 neurons or something, you're looking at 70 million, I think, human brain, 90 billion, roughly, neurons. Okay? So the undertaking of, well, this is

[Peter]

only a function of time.

[Professor Melvin]

It's just a scaling problem because the methodology is the same. If they can do it, it's a proof of concept at that scale, okay, they can scale it up. Before that one, it was 306 neurons, like a roundworm or something, like a very small organism, a few hundred neurons. Now we move to over 125,000. All right. The next.

[Peter]

So, yeah, I see where you're going.

[Professor Melvin]

So when, When? When. The first thing you say. You can never simulate biological life. You can never. Yes, you can, and that's the proof. And this is March 2026, nature articles and real science happening as we speak.

[Peter]

You want to ask something?

[Connor]

I want to ask you something quite personal. As a scientist and a physicist, I understand that you always want to discover and find new things. But then as a human, you want to preserve your life. Do you look at this excited or scared? Would you stop now or would you carry on?

[Professor Melvin]

It's. I love this question, and I'll tell you why. Let's assume, hypothetically, that these guys. Eon systems, and they map a human brain entirely and they load it into a simulation like this. What exactly wakes up in there? What is that? Will you have feelings like us? Emotions? Will it wonder about, where am I? What is this universe? Who created me? You will look for food. You will suffer. You will he have human rights. The is what? What? That entity there, it could be very well, just like us.

[Peter]

Well, hold on.

[Professor Melvin]

And that shows that we could also be ourselves into something like that.

[Peter]

That's a qu. You're thinking about. Can we upload ourselves at the end of life to a digital. No, no, no. Oh, I am.

[Connor]

I'm asking, does this excite you or does it worry you? Because when you talk about AI A minute ago, you were like, we don't know what's happening, what's real anymore.

[Professor Melvin]

I get it.

[Connor]

As a scientist, you want to discover these things.

[Professor Melvin]

Both. It. Both. It scares me and excites me at the same time.

[Connor]

Stop or carry on. What do you choose?

[Professor Melvin]

Oh, we know we don't. You guys feel occasionally, sometimes that the free will is an illusion.

[Peter]

Hell, yeah.

[Professor Melvin]

And. And actually, you don't have a choice. You think you have a choice, but you don't. You. You think you can stop and you have a choice, but you actually is like, we are programmed to do things. It's like you follow a path sometimes or. I don't think we can stop this. I don't think we can stop. Well, we won't. There are the forces of nature. The code, the whatever is driving things. It will not allow this to stop.

[Peter]

But hold on.

[Professor Melvin]

It goes one way. It will not go back. What it will stop is an EMP is a cataclysmic event or something. But not us will not stop.

[Peter]

So imagine they get to the point they can do it for humans, right? So you could do a baby and Put a baby into this world. But if it did me at this moment in time.

[Professor Melvin]

Yeah.

[Peter]

Say end of life, I die. The minute I die, they map everything else. I get every, Everything Correct. Right. Is the version of me they upload indistinguishable from the real world. Me to me in that digital world. Do I. Or is that, Is that a clone of me?

[Professor Melvin]

The, the honest answer is I don't know. I, I can't tell you what that fly thinks or does. All I can tell you is that it behaves like a real one, like a regular fly. Naturalistic movements. Nobody showed that fly how to walk. The, the, the, the complex movement, the legs. You saw how it looks. Yeah.

[Peter]

Figured it out.

[Professor Melvin]

Yeah. It just, it just did.

[Peter]

Yeah.

[Professor Melvin]

And without any programming, without any machine learning, without anything.

[Peter]

But there's encoded information in like, it's like when birds know how to migrate. That's an encoded piece of information within them. But like con. Say I die, you can upload a version of me into that and you can talk to me and communicate to me.

[Connor]

No chance.

[Peter]

No. But hear me out. Hear me out. I have every memory. I know everything. It is a perfect replication of me. And because of like, we know, we can do computers. It can look like me. I can exist like red dwarf within the screen. And I remember everything that I remember in the physical form. And you can carry on that relationship with me. But is it me?

[Connor]

Yeah.

[Peter]

Is it me? No.

[Connor]

No. It's a very interesting question.

[Professor Melvin]

So it's a very.

[Peter]

What do you think?

[Professor Melvin]

It's a very good point. Because what happened is, I think there are two components. There is like that fly, all those behavioral animalistic things that they were, they appear to be built in, into the brain structure and just uploading that into the digital form, it was enough to start behaving like a real fly. But I think we have that as well. But I think there is something else that maybe you cannot map or program. There is something else. The consciousness. And I would call it consciousness.

[Peter]

Or we just, like, or we just.

[Professor Melvin]

Maybe we don't know. Maybe we don't know that. Yeah.

[Peter]

Are we literally just a biological computer? Like if they have soul.

[Professor Melvin]

Yeah, but that's the soul.

[Peter]

Is a soul something we've invented to give us a higher meaning than just being a biological computer?

[Professor Melvin]

Is it an emergent property of.

[Connor]

Are we just humanoid robots?

[Peter]

Yeah. Are we biological robots? Because if we're biological robots, all it is is the brain has convinced ourselves. A part of the information in the brain is convincing ourselves that we are More than just a biological computer that we are conscious. That, that we are conscious self aware. But really that is that just a brain that's more evolved than a dog. So dog isn't self aware. It. It's. It's more kind of autonomous. It knows the basics of what it has to do is eat shit or whatever, but it's. It's not self aware. It doesn't think of the universe. It doesn't question these things. It doesn't communicate. If is our brain just an. Is it just evolved to a point to convince itself it's more than. And we are just biological computers. And if that is true, then is life extension uploading ourselves like the fruit fly? And if. And then. And do. This is. Okay, this is where it gets really interesting. All right, Imagine we can do that for a human. We can do the fruit fly con. And I upload myself to the computer. We get my version of me in there and I've got all the memories and history. My body dies. Am I still the same person? And what I mean is, when I'm in there and I'm communicating, remember the

[Connor]

old you and the new.

[Peter]

So I would. Because I have the entire brain mapping history of everything I. If it has. If it's exactly the same, that representation of me remembers everything outside. And I'm in the computer. I'm going, hi, Khan. Yeah, sorry, I'm in the computer now. Once you're dead, fucking clean your room up. But like, But I'm still that person is some. And, and does that computer version.

[Connor]

But it doesn't age also. And what age do you choose to come back?

[Peter]

Hold on. I don't think I'm so. I know me. I know me now. I'm thinking of me now. I know my whole history of life and I think I'm me. I have self aware meaning.

[Connor]

I know what you're saying.

[Peter]

In the computer. Is it the same?

[Connor]

Do you remember? Like, do you see yourself as that same person? Or do you see yourself as a computer?

[Peter]

Pete? Well, it's even. No, it's not even that. I wake up every day as me, knowing I'm me, knowing my life, my goals and ambitions. If I transplant that into the computer and this body dies, does that person still be me? Yeah, we're saying the same thing. Yeah, yeah. So I think I've died, but I've carried on. But am I like, have I trans? Have I fully transferred into it? Do you understand what I'm trying to say? Like. Or is that the compute. Is that the computer version Thought like this is. Yeah, car journey.

[Professor Melvin]

But there is a chance in our lifetime these questions could be answered, actually in our lifetime. Because the progress that scientists and engineers are making now in this space is incredible and is augmented by AI and is rapidly accelerating so much now. You've seen there that March 2026 stuff. Remarkable, isn't it?

[Peter]

It's the question of, are we more than just a biological computer? And I don't know that.

[Professor Melvin]

I don't know either.

[Connor]

I think anyone does. That's why we.

[Professor Melvin]

That's.

[Connor]

That's why that's what we're looking for.

[Professor Melvin]

We're programmed to search. We are programmed to investigate where. Where there is this greed for science and for knowledge and understanding. This is what we're doing. But we. We can't really render matter. We can't take a material object, digitize it, and then reconstruct it somewhere else, as in teleportation or simulated, sort of like in physical form.

[Connor]

You say, can we transfer matter? But if a potential explanation for the matter here is we are just code, part of a computer. Exactly what is the difference between this matter and the matter in the simulation the fly is in? So is that not transferring matter?

[Peter]

No. It's converting matter into bytes and bits.

[Connor]

No, because that is just creating another computer, another software.

[Professor Melvin]

It's a very good point. Because at the end of the day, what we perceive as reality is just electrical signals that you are. It's just like that fly, he thinks he eats food and it's actually a simulated order or some other.

[Connor]

What's the difference?

[Professor Melvin]

So exactly. You cannot.

[Connor]

Hedges and our trees.

[Professor Melvin]

I agree. No, I totally agree. Yeah, it's a good question.

[Connor]

So maybe we've already done it.

[Professor Melvin]

Yeah, exactly. That's. That's the point. That's the point.

[Connor]

We're here.

[Professor Melvin]

Yes, that's the point.

[Peter]

Have you read the Tibetan Book of Living and Dying? No. Okay. It talks about the purpose of life is to prepare for death. Your entire life you are preparing for death.

[Professor Melvin]

Death being the beginning of something else.

[Peter]

Yes, because when you. You want to leave this world for the next world, ready, with no enemies, no pain. So you spend.

[Professor Melvin]

So it's like a training. You go and do your school, you do your training, you get ready, you graduate, and then you are ready to go.

[Peter]

Yeah. And I think about that a lot.

[Connor]

A guide for the soul to move through the intermediate state to reach rebirth or liberation.

[Peter]

Yeah. And I. And by the way, that book, I think I've tried to read it three times and I get to the end of the third chapter. And I'm like, I've got enough here. And I think about that a lot. And I think about arguments, fighting on Twitter.

[Professor Melvin]

Yeah.

[Peter]

You know, trying to accumulate wealth and all of those things where irrelevant. Well, yeah, well, no, you think, think about somebody with a terminal illness.

[Professor Melvin]

Exactly.

[Peter]

Close to death.

[Professor Melvin]

Yeah.

[Peter]

Months, maybe weeks.

[Professor Melvin]

Yeah.

[Peter]

They start preparing for death. They start preparing. They find God, they see their family, they stop working. Well, in the Tibetan book of living and dying, they don't wait for that moment, they do it their entire life. So if this is a simulation, what is it for? Is it, is it for the souls, every soul on this planet to have an opportunity to, you know, transcend to something else? Or is it something else? Is this a simulation that's being run to test something? I was with Roman, I can never pronounce his surname. Yampowski.

[Professor Melvin]

Is that the AI? Yeah, yeah, I know him.

[Peter]

We had a discussion. Is, could this be a simulation? Is this a sandbox for testing AI? Do you think AI is accelerating us towards the singularity?

[Professor Melvin]

Yeah.

[Peter]

To finding out.

[Professor Melvin]

Yeah. Yeah. It will take us there.

[Peter]

Maybe that's game over.

[Connor]

And then knowing all this, how do you navigate life now, like for yourself personally?

[Professor Melvin]

One thing I'm, I'm positive about is that I'm, I'm no longer scared of death, is I. I know from, just from a pure scientific angle, from physics, that the law of conservation of energy, the law of conservation of information, all these conservation laws require that something remains at the point of death. You, you are not completely erased. There is something that stays. It's just a transition to something else. So that is a physic physics fact is not religion, is not speculation, is not mythology, is a physics fact. The, these computational aspects that are popping up now and these ideas are bringing another dimension to the whole thing. Okay. But definitely, definitely I, I am a little bit more relaxed about end of life.

[Connor]

What's next?

[Professor Melvin]

Yeah, so I'm more excited about finding out what's on the other side, maybe.

[Peter]

Have you dug much into like the DMT world?

[Professor Melvin]

And, oh, I have a friend that discovered Danny, Danny Goller, he's a friend of mine.

[Peter]

They have consistent experiences.

[Professor Melvin]

Yeah. They put a laser on the wall and they take DMT and they can see the code. The guy. Oh, you are not aware of this? No, he was on like the Matrix. Yeah, yeah. So he, A couple of years ago, he was taking DMT and I don't know for what reason, he started to play with a laser and he projected across a diffracted cross onto a surface. He was a wall, but it can be any surface. It was a red laser. And under dmt, when you do that, allegedly you can see the code. Like the matrix.

[Peter]

Exploring the bridge between cognition and physics. Rigorous experimental research into the relationship between the human cognition and physical systems conducted openly and collaboratively.

[Professor Melvin]

Keep going.

[Peter]

Con. Cognitive phys. Okay, let me just read what that says. Code of Reality is a non profit research institute dedicated to the systematic investigation of a newly discovered reproducible visual phenomena. We're bridging the gap between conscious. How was that word? Femininology. And the physical world through revolutionary new constant disciplines. Right, what's their objective? Conducting rigorous experimental protocols. Connecting. We've just said that. Hold on, I want to know what

[Connor]

like, I mean you won't be able to actually see it.

[Professor Melvin]

They can't feel that. Yeah, but you. They can describe it, but they can't.

[Peter]

Because the thing that interests me about

[Professor Melvin]

DMT is that the experiment, this is how they do it.

[Peter]

The laser illumination paradigm discovered by Danny Garner identifies stable recurring visual code like structures in 650nm laser tight.

[Professor Melvin]

Under NNDMT, this is 650nm. That's the wavelength of the laser.

[Peter]

This protocol transforms subjective phenomenology into a repeatable laboratory observation. This is because the thing about DMT that gets me, everybody I've spoken to has a very similar experience. They go on, they see the elves and the.

[Professor Melvin]

Well, that's beyond that. It's one step beyond that. Actually, it's another layer. So what happened with this laser thing? He put out a video and saying on YouTube a few years ago, hey guys, I've done this, I've seen this, I've seen the code. What the hell is that? And if other people, other people did it and they, they had some million viewers or something. Multi, multi million viewers on the video and then they came back and said, hey, I've done it. And it's true, I've seen it as well and. As well and. As well.

[Peter]

But have you watched the Matrix all the way through?

[Connor]

Pretty much.

[Peter]

Have you? Do you know when I talk about the Matrix and he sees the code. Yeah, it's like, it's wild.

[Professor Melvin]

That's this, that's this. Yes.

[Peter]

Right. I want to know what you think then, so.

[Professor Melvin]

But I'm not doing that, that kind of research and I've never, I've never done DMT actually. Ever.

[Peter]

No, we should do it, you and

[Professor Melvin]

I, before I die. Definitely. I need to try once.

[Peter]

But let's go to the Lab. Let's do.

[Professor Melvin]

I don't want to fry my brain yet.

[Peter]

We're going to see. We're going to see the code and the else. Okay, but I want to know what you.

[Professor Melvin]

Danny is doing retreats now.

[Peter]

Do what? Retreats.

[Professor Melvin]

Retreats? Yeah, like the experience in Karaiba somewhere. Costa Rica.

[Peter]

Costa Rica. Yeah. Perfect. You want to go?

[Professor Melvin]

It has, like, a package with hotel, and the experience included everything.

[Peter]

Take my fucking money. I'm going. I want to see this. All right, but look, I want to know what you actually think. Do you think. Do you think. What do you think?

[Professor Melvin]

What do you think? I don't think anything.

[Peter]

No?

[Professor Melvin]

Well, I'm doing.

[Peter]

Come on, man. We all have an opinion. I'm. I'm. I'm fully convinced that this is a simulation. I don't know what kind of simulation. I don't know if a simulation God created for us, or we're like, there's an outside. I'm in a simulation. To me, that's what I think.

[Professor Melvin]

To me, it looks like some kind of computational process, but I can't speculate who is running it, who is doing it, who is. The Bible says he's an AI But I think my purpose is to, from the angle I'm coming, is to. Is to use the tools I have at my disposal to try to understand this.

[Peter]

Do you think we have free will?

[Professor Melvin]

I. I don't think we have free will. That's the thing. I don't. I don't think there is. I think it's an illusion because I felt it in my own. I'm. I'm 52 almost. And on many occasions, I thought, I have free will and I can do what I want. But it's not. It's not working like this.

[Peter]

Do you think we have free will? Come.

[Connor]

It's so hard to answer.

[Peter]

So if I come over there and I'll slap you in the face. I have no free will. The code made me do it.

[Connor]

Oh, I slapped you back.

[Professor Melvin]

Yeah. It's a tough one. Yeah.

[Peter]

All right. Consciousness. Do you think that's emergent?

[Professor Melvin]

It could be. It could if. If. Let's put it like this. If these AI machines become. And there are signs, they are already sentient, they become sentient, and they become conscious entities. Maybe the consciousness is also in the biological format, an emergent property, just like neural networks. And, you know, these artificial brains that we are creating and AI develop consciousness. So we will. Many, many questions we have today, they will be answered within our lifetime, very soon, because of the AI.

[Peter]

See, that's another interesting thing. I think about this a lot. I think about the universe is meant to be, what, 13.8 billion years?

[Professor Melvin]

Yeah.

[Peter]

And for some reason some collisions happened that created this Earth that was in the Goldilocks zone from the sun, that enabled the atmosphere and water and it's some primordial soup. Eventually there was. The double helix was created and then replicated and then it evolved to become whatever little tiny little life and then. Then life escaped the oceans onto the land and the plants were created in the trees and the food. And then eventually we evolved all the way to humans. And humans procreated and divided by divided all to the point where my parents existed, met and they created me in that moment. And you think of the. The mathematical odds of me being alive are so. They're infinitely small because, you know, if my parents had not met or where they met, but they didn't procreate, when they did, it was the next day and it was different sperm. Like the mathematical odds of us four people being in this room, infinitely tiny.

[Professor Melvin]

Like those bricks you threw from the lorry and they built into a house themselves. That's exactly like that.

[Peter]

Yeah.

[Professor Melvin]

I have a lower probability than that, maybe. Yeah.

[Peter]

But I am here feeling conscious and you are feeling conscious and Connor is encouraged and we're having this conversation and not only we having it, we're having it in the part of history of time. We're not having it in the Victorian times or World War II. We're having it at a time where we look most. We go in to see the singularity.

[Professor Melvin]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Peter]

You certainly. Me probably. You probably. But like we going to see it. It's like. It's just. It just doesn't make sense when you. When you think about all. So that makes me think we're always alive and we're always at existence and I've always thought we're actually. We're all. If we. If conscious exists, we're all the same consciousness. Because otherwise why do I get to. Why do I get to exist me? It doesn't make sense.

[Professor Melvin]

Yeah. Does that make sense as a thing I think about? Yeah.

[Peter]

We need a joint.

[Professor Melvin]

When. Yeah. When you start starting philosophical analysis like this, then it can go on forever and you can branch out into so many different possibilities and ideas and I. It can get you crazy a little bit when you start thinking about these things. So why. What I do, I narrow down to very specific things and like in the physics and information physics space and focus on those things and what comes out share it. When it comes out and add my spin to it and maybe occasionally some speculations, but I'm not going that far. I'm not going that far because if I do, I get to lose my mind completely. I just.

[Peter]

Yes, all right. We all get that one question that Elon had. If you can know one thing, Connor, what is it?

[Connor]

Oh, yeah, it's saying purpose, meaning.

[Peter]

What's the thing you want to know? What your meaning?

[Connor]

The purpose of life itself.

[Professor Melvin]

It's not just life, is it? It's the. The ontology of anything. You know, like why. Why there is something rather than nothing. You know why? You know, it's because. Yeah, the. The existence itself is.

[Peter]

And if we discovered it, if the AI, the superintelligence, the scientists, discovered unambiguous truth, facts, that this is an artificial simulation, would what would that change for you?

[Professor Melvin]

I think nothing. I think. I think we are going to go about our lives the same way. There is no. You don't feel any difference anyway. If somebody will tell you positively 100 that we have evidence this is a simulation or some kind of construct, would you change anything? Would you? Depends.

[Peter]

If you have free will.

[Professor Melvin]

What I'm trying to say is that we have no reference frame to distinguish which one is which, whether is real or simulated. If they're identical and you know, we don't know. So you. You are not going to change anything. You're going to listen.

[Peter]

Would you. If you had, I think, proof, hard evidence. We're now in a simulation, but you did have free will.

[Connor]

What can you do at that point?

[Peter]

Like, does the purpose of your life change?

[Connor]

No, the purpose, like it's you either at that point. It's like red flute, red pill, blue pill.

[Peter]

Well, so my view on it is that knowing will defeat the purpose of life.

[Connor]

Yeah, that's my point. Like, once you get to that stage, it gets boring very quickly. Like, it's the chase, it's the journey that matters. Right, the journey to discovery.

[Peter]

Well, I think it's slightly different. You're talking about that thing earlier where if you become the God, you can change.

[Connor]

Well, no, but I also think knowing is becoming the God. Because what's the difference between you and the God at that point?

[Peter]

Well, the God can manipulate if they want, but knowing is just either knowing there is no purpose or there is purpose. It's one of the two. There's a purpose or. No, if there's purpose, there is a purpose to prepare like the Tibetan monks for the next world. If there is no purpose, the end of the game. The computer turns off, you're wiped, game over.

[Professor Melvin]

I don't think it works like that. I don't. I'm not, I'm not the.

[Peter]

But maybe it does.

[Professor Melvin]

Nah, I, I think he's not. The way you describe it as turn it off or game or. I don't think it works like that. I think in the grand picture there is something much more complex than we can even comprehend. We can't even. There is. Yeah. I don't think it's as simplistic. We use the digital technologies and computing analogies and all that because this is what we do in our world and we try to explain this possibility using the tools and the understandings and the technologies that we have in our, our everyday life. But it doesn't mean it works like that. It could be something that is completely different. We. We have no idea.

[Peter]

If people want to find your work, where do they go? Tell them where to go.

[Professor Melvin]

Each academic has a profile at the university. I work for the University of Portsmouth. I'm associate professor in physics there. I have a webpage with all my articles listed there and everything. I'm also the CEO of the Information Physics Institute. This is the first organization in the world dedicated to researching information physics, which is, I believe is quite new field of research, a new branch in physics research and we have a lot of activities there. We publish two journals, we have a membership scheme. All my research is listed there. We have, I do some YouTube IPI learn lectures series where I present my science in a very detailed way, equation by equation. I explain for both amateurs, but also advanced, you know, professionals in, in the field. So yeah, my work is in the public domain. Everything is there, either the university or the, the institute that I, I run.

[Peter]

Well, Melvin, I'll tell you what, I've loved this. We can have a fun car journey home being Connor. I hope we get to do this again. This was. This was wild, man.

[Professor Melvin]

Thank you for having me. That was my pleasure.

[Peter]

Thank you. Thank you to everyone for listening. We'll see you all soon.